An opera so widely known and loved as La traviata may seem. a strange subject for musicological research. It was first performed in March 1853. From the following year onwards it enjoyed an uninterrupted reign as an international favourite. Throughout the nineteenth century it came second in popularity only to Il trovatore; while Verdi himself, when asked at one point which of his own operas he preferred, is said to have replied, ‘Speaking as a professional, Rigoletto, speaking as an amateur, La traviata’. In the period following his death many of Verdi's works now considered masterpieces sank for a while below the horizon—but not La traviata. Today it is not only Verdi's best-loved opera, but the most popular piece in the entire operatic repertory. What more could there be to find out about it?

With no startling incidents or striking events to mark its course, the life of Sterndale Bennett will yet be always interesting to every one who likes to trace the progress and development of a truly artistic genius. It will be my endeavour to put before you plainly and simply the salient features of a career highly important in the history of musical art in England. The Bennett family were of Derbyshire orgin. Sterndale Bennett's grandfather, John Bennett, was born in the picturesque village of Ashford-in-the-Peak in 1750. Whilst still a youth he left for Cambridge, where he was appointed lay clerk at King's. He married, and had a numerous family. Robert, one of the elder sons, father of Sterndale Bennett, studied the organ and composition with Dr. Clarke. He became a musician of ability, and settled in Sheffield, where he took an excellent position and held the office of organist at the parish church. Amongst his many friends were Mr. William Howard and Mr William Sterndale, the latter a man of literary tastes, some of whose verses were set to music by Robert Bennett and published by subscription. In 1812 he married Elizabeth, daughter of James Donn, curator of the Botanical Gardens, Cambridge, and author of a classified catalogue of plants. He had two daughters and a son— William Sterndale Bennett—who was born on April 13, 1816, in Norfolk Row, Sheffield. Little Sterndale was not fated to know for long a father's care or a mother's love. He lost his mother when two years old, and his father died a year afterwards. Thus he was doubly orphaned in tender age. Happily his grandfather adopted him, and Mr. Howard took charge of the child until he could be sent to Cambridge. Here he was placed, when eight years old, as chorister at King's College, and had the educational advantages afforded to the boys of the various choirs.

When the subject of this address was decided upon, I had an idea that I might bring before the attention of this meeting many unfamiliar facts in connection with a most important, possibly the most important, branch of musical composition; but in the interim there has appeared the beginning of an article in Mr. Grove's Dictionary—which, although it is not yet signed, I guess from internal evidence to be the production of Mr. Rockstro—which anticipates many of the novelties I might have advanced, and sets those forth in the most clear, in the most interesting, and (I can say nothing short of the highest terms of eulogy) the most satisfactory and instructive light.

It is doubtful if a subject more essentially English could have been chosen from the pages of musical history than that of the Viols. Although of foreign origin, they became so thoroughly naturalised in this country, and exercised so great an influence upon the history of English instrumental music, that I think no apology will be needed for my having selected them to be the theme of the present paper. I have written it in order to bring together all the information I could collect, and out of the whole to construct an account that may possibly be useful for purposes of reference. But before going further into the matter it will be well if I state my programme in more detail. By “Viols,” I mean the members of that family of bowed instruments with flat backs, sloping shoulders, and C-shaped sound-holes. They were instruments of the greatest possible importance, looked at from any point of view, and, in consideration of their worth in the artistic, historical and sociological aspects, they certainly merit detailed treatment. The period to which I propose to devote myself is that which lies between the date of our first authentic piece of documentary evidence and that at which the Viola da Gamba vanished before the conquering Violoncello. With Rebecks, Vielles, Fiedels and Gigues I shall have nothing to do; we have seen all too often into what misty tangles such research can lead the antiquarian. I wish to indulge in speculation as little as possible, and shall do my utmost to avoid propounding theories as to the ultimate source of the Viols. It will be best, I think, if we accept these instruments as accomplished facts and see what can be discovered of their English history. I am of opinion that a consideration of the Mediæval bowed instruments—interesting though it might be from the antiquarian and social points of view—would scarcely be worth the time spent upon it by the modem musician. It has not yet been conclusively proved—to my mind at any rate—that these instruments of the Middle Ages were the direct lineal ancestors of the Viols. A discussion of this question is not my purpose to-day; but I must say, in passing, that I do not believe the former had any more or less to do with the latter than had one style of architecture with another. I propose taking up my subject at the transition period when the music for these instruments ceased to be a mere duplication of a voice-part and became instrumental music pure and simple. That motley throng of fiddlers, jongleurs and troubadours, must go on fiddling their improvised accompaniments in the romantic borderland between legend and established facts; while we confine ourselves to the time when our beautiful soft-voiced Viols were making scientifically correct music of distinct artistic worth.

Our time of progress is often specially designated a critical and even hypercritical period. But whilst so much deep thought and true feeling have flowed from the pens of profound thinkers in every direction, it has occurred to no one to attack a barbarous remnant of bygone times in music. The idea might have appalled one less deeply convinced than myself. But one must have courage to enter the lists for what one has well weighed and found to be true. I propose to deal here with no less a matter than the entire abolition of all part-repetition in music—e.g., in symphonies, sonatas, quartets, &c. Can there be anything more inconsistent than these stereotyped repetitions? The artist creates a work from his innermost soul, and places it before us in its entirety so that we might behold the same mirage which enchanted his mind, and follow him with the unabated energy of all our mental faculties. He receives us, as it were, upon his Mephistophelian mantle, and carries us in a trice across giddy heights and rugged rocks, over charming valleys, purling brooks, and roaring torrents. He transports us to the pinnacle of joy, and anon dashes into the abyss of sorrow, thrilling us with the ever-changing kaleidoscope of human emotions. Happy is he whose receptive powers can arouse that sympathy which warms into enthusiasm for the master's vision of the ideal. He approaches nearest to the creating genius.

Nearly all of Schumann's music contains or derives from words, whether as texts, titles, programmes or epigraphs. It is also famous for its structure of music qua mosaic, an aggregation of small-scale motifs. Now, surely these two basic facts about Schumann—his obviously verbal content, his obviously motivic form—may well be related? He works by way of motto-themes, I suggest, because that is literally what they are—mottoes turned into themes.

To build a bridge between the art of music and the physical and physiological sciences of sound was the task that Helmholtz set himself when he entered upon the classical work which has served ever since as the basis of all research in this field. How far he succeeded in accomplishing his object we need not discuss here, but he certainly laid the foundation of a very extensive practical science, devoted alone to the investigation of the laws of sound in all the varied forms in which we meet them in music. The phonologist, as he should be called who is occupied with this study, finds himself, however, in a somewhat isolated situation. The schools of experimental physics are generally too busy with electricity and kindred subjects to give much thought to sound, although the telephone and phonograph have to some extent forced their attention in that direction. Among physiologists, very few are occupied with sound, and the peculiar skill required in studying the vocal organs, which has necessitated the formation of a special branch of medicine, diminishes their number still further.

Few extant collections of late-medieval polyphony have been linked definitively to composers whose works they transmit. A dearth of documents that are literally ‘authoritative’ – in the sense that they come directly from the hand of the author – is not surprising in light of the small survival rate of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscripts and the likelihood that pieces were not written down for the first time in versions for presentation. Most surviving manuscripts appear to be several generations removed from written originals. Nevertheless, presentation manuscripts and other anthologies were not necessarily compiled by scribes in isolation. When composers were nearby they probably were consulted, either directly or through scribal access to authoritative written exemplars. Therefore, despite a paucity of documented relationships, some extant manuscripts may have been compiled in close association with the composers whose music they contain, perhaps even under their guidance.

Your Council have done me the honour of inviting me to read a paper before you this evening, and have suggested as a subject “Fugal Structure.” It gives me very great pleasure to accede to their request. I presume that the choice of the subject proposed to me is due to my having recently published a book on Fugue, in which I have ventured to express views differing considerably in some respects from those to be found in most other text-books; and I think I may probably take it that I am virtually invited to explain and justify the position I have taken up. If this be so, I most willingly accept the challenge; for my only object is the truth, and there is everything to be gained by full and free discussion. I fear, however, that for those who have already read my book on Fugue, the present paper will present but little novelty; for it will necessarily be little more than an abstract of the contents of my volume. There is one advantage at least; it will furnish an opportunity for thrashing the subject out thoroughly; and I think it very probable that the discussion which I hope will follow my paper may prove to be the most interesting and profitable part of this evening's proceedings. In order to leave as much time as possible for discussion, I shall endeavour to condense what I have to say, as far as I can do so without sacrifice of clearness.

The problem of range-finding—i.e., finding the distance of an object—is generally reduced to that of finding the direction of the object from each of a set of base points. Usually the object ranged is in motion, and the necessary measurements must be made rapidly.

The history of the flat, sharp, and natural is not a dull record, but a tale full of stirring incidents. If my narrative does not succeed in engaging your interest, in stimulating your curiosity, and in now and then sending a thrill of excitement through you, I have failed to do justice to the noble subject of my choice. These remarks may lead you to suppose that I am going to speak of the human flats, sharps, and naturals of our profession. This, too, is, if not a noble, certainly an interesting subject; but it is not the one of which I intend to treat on this occasion. My subject is the origin, rise, and vicissitudes of the musical signs that raise and lower natural notes and restore raised and lowered notes to their natural state. No doubt most people would suspect such a history to be dull; but nothing is dull if only we go deep enough into it. The subject in question is certainly not an exception to this rule, which could be confirmed by the study of hundreds of the apparently dry details of our notation. It is with these details as with the humble constituents of society; with the flat, sharp, and natural as with those lowly neighbours of ours whose lives seem to us an unbroken level desert. How great is always our astonishment when chance allows us to get a glimpse of what is hidden behind the plain, prosaic exteriors, and we discover loves and hates, hopes and disappointments, joys and sorrows, aspirations, successes, and failures—in short, at least as much romance as in the lives of the great and mighty. Well, let us try to get a glimpse of what is hidden behind the plain exteriors of the humble friends now under consideration.

Possibly at no previous period in the history of our Art has so much been said and written about that very complex human faculty—the action of listening to music. We have only to take down the last of those comely little volumes of the Proceedings of this Association (which now begin to make quite a goodly show upon our bookshelves) to find that no fewer than three papers bearing more or less directly upon this subject were read last session. I refer, of course, to those by Messrs. Jacques, Banister, and Lake. The importance and interest, as well as the comprehensiveness of this absorbing topic must be pleaded as my excuse for venturing to bring it before you again this evening.

In October 1945, five months after the end of the Second World War in Europe, German critic Edmund Nick wrote the following in the American-sponsored Munich newspaper Neue Zeitung:

In this article I argue that Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony assumes a pivotal role in advancing the romantically tinged narrative in Luchino Visconti’s film Senso (1954) through a politically recoded message. Visconti offers in this film a reflection upon the political climate in Venetia during the Risorgimento through the pre-eminent role of music. In particular, Bruckner’s music emphasizes the condition of the Venetians under Austrian rulers by dominating as an oppressive and overpowering force, not unlike the Austrian supremacy over the north Italians. Bruckner’s music, which relies on a decisively Wagnerian idiom, conveys throughout the film ideas of betrayal, on both the microlevel and the macrolevel. Such betrayals refer to the Christian Democracy, which excluded the Marxist partisans from governing post-war Italy. These events mirror, for Visconti, the failed revolution of the bourgeois-driven Risorgimento in the 19th century due to the idleness of the aristocracy. Interpreted through Visconti’s Marxist ideology, Bruckner is thus an indicator that the hegemony of the elite remained in place, unchanged and unaltered. As the sonic representative of the Austrian monarchy, it opposes the Risorgimento ideal of the bourgeois class and reassures the supremacy of the ruling class.

Many of the pieces in Matthew Locke's seven sets of consort music, whose principal source is the great score-book in the British Museum, Add. MS 17801, were subjected to a process of careful and repeated revision. The changes Locke made were sometimes extensive, involving the restructuring of an entire movement, the introduction of new material, or the substantial modification of that existing already. The editor of such works must decide whether he is going to present a single version—in this case presumably the composer's final revision—or to embody the variant readings in a textual commentary, or to print such readings in their entirety as parallel texts. The usefulness of a textual commentary tends to be in inverse proportion to its length: the more variants there are to be listed the less easy it becomes to perceive the overall shape of that version of the text embodying them. In the case of Locke's music ‘For Several Friends’ and the movements of the Flat Consort which were subjected to much change the ideal solution is obviously to print both first and last versions in full. But Locke is after all not Beethoven, and in the recent Musica Britannica edition only the composer's final versions have been presented, with a few examples of movements from the early version of the Flat Consort to illustrate the extent and nature of the modifications. Nevertheless, Locke's revisions are worth considering in some detail, for they reveal a composer with a mind both restless and fastidious. The best point of departure is the autograph score-book itself which Locke entitled ‘Compositions for Broken, and whole Consorts, of two, three, Fower, Five, and Six Parts, made by Matthew Locke, Composer in Ordinary to his Majestye’.

The earlier part of the nineteenth century is considered a ‘bad’ period of English music. It has been labelled, like the earlier period discussed by Dr. Sadie at our last meeting, a ‘Dark Age’. It is interesting to see on what basis these judgments are held. How much music written by English composers in the years 1800–1860 is still generally known? I have compiled a rough list of works that are still in current use, apart from occasional revivals. It is based on recent programmes, chapel lists, publishers’ catalogues, and so on.

The recent publication of Heinrich Schenker's Das Meisterwerk in der Musik (1925-30) in a translation by Ian Bent, William Drabkin and others reminds us that in the highest modern traditions textual criticism and exegesis — editing and analysis — are inseparable. Much of Schenker's commentary on Mozart's Symphony in G minor, K.550, is devoted to isolating discrepancies between manuscript and edition, and some of his most fascinating analytical suggestions grow out of just this. Conversely, analytical strategies may have editorial consequences, and decisions taken by editors of the Neue Mozart Ausgabe have been challenged justly on stylistic grounds. If a passage occurs twice in a composition, for instance, does it have to be articulated in the same way on both occasions? And if there are differences in the articulations, what exactly do they tell us? Given the intricacy of the modern analytical debate over Mozart, such questions may not be answered by editors alone. Nor can editions be undertaken without reference to changing social circumstances: for composers in general have shown themselves more than ready to provide their own variants for different performing situations (again, Mozart's re-orchestration of the Symphony in G minor is a case in point). Indeed, in another field, scholars have asked that cultural issues should also influence editorial practice; these issues similarly require learning and sensitivity, and again deserve attention.

Ralph Vaughan Williams's father died when Ralph was two years old; his mother took her three small children to her own parents' house, Leith Hill Place, near Dorking, and brought them up much as she had been brought up herself. Besides the children, the household consisted of grandparents and a maiden aunt, and a staff of servants, mostly local people. Judging from a photograph of a group of them, none was young, and all were slightly eccentric.